Computer-aided design (CAD) refers to the use of computer technology for the design of real, e.g., physical, or virtual objects. CAD systems allow one to create and output, for example, engineering drawings, symbolic information such as materials, processes, dimensions, and tolerances, according to application-specific conventions. CAD systems are used extensively within disparate fields such as drafting, medical imaging, building design, circuit design, and the like.
CAD systems allow a designer to visualize the particular object being created or operated upon. This visualization of objects requires the CAD system to store and utilize a large amount of data. As CAD systems become more powerful, the amount of data that is used and relied upon to generate visualizations grows. In fact, the size of the data for visualizing any of a variety of objects within modern CAD systems can be so large that the time required for sending that data over an Internet connection is prohibitive. This makes updating a library of data used for generating visualizations, e.g., graphical modeling data, within a CAD system difficult.
In illustration, consider that some CAD systems for circuit design allow users to place components of a circuit design as an overlay atop of a visualization of an underlying integrated circuit (IC). CAD systems for circuit design using programmable ICs are one example in which the CAD system displays a schematic view of the underlying IC over which the designer can place various components of a circuit design as one or more overlays. The schematic view itself can be formed from a plurality of layers of graphics specified by graphical modeling data that can be stored as part of the CAD system or within an associated library.
The graphical modeling data that visualizes a schematic for a single type or model of programmable IC can be approximately several hundred megabytes in size. Considering that CAD systems typically allow designers to create circuit designs for implementation within any of a plurality of different programmable ICs available from selected manufacturers, it can be seen that the uncompressed graphical modeling data relating to different ICs within a CAD system can easily exceed one gigabyte.
Modern compression techniques are unable to reduce the size of the data to satisfactory levels. Use of programmable ICs is but one example in which the amount of graphical modeling data necessary for generating visualizations is large. The same is true with regard to CAD systems suited for any of a variety of different fields, whether generalized CAD systems for drafting or schematic generation, or more specialized CAD systems.